Join the 2014 Crafty Christmas Tutorial Link-Up!

Remember last year's Crafty Christmas Tutorial Link-Up?

Well, I'm organising another one! Yay!

The idea is that lots of bloggers share a festive tutorial on the same day, then we all share links to each other's tutorials. It was so much fun seeing everyone's tutorials last year, there was such a lovely mix of different projects.

Want to take part?

Step 1: Send me a message to let me know what your blog address is, and that you'd like to join the link-up fun. You can contact me HERE. 

Step 2: Design a tutorial! The tutorial should have a Christmas theme (no "gift ideas" please unless they have a festive twist) and should be new and your own design. It's fine to do a tutorial for something you've made or blogged about before but please don't repost an old tutorial from your archives.

Any and all crafty techniques are welcome - we had a great selection last time! As well as the usual crafty stuff like sewing and knitting and paper crafting, you're also welcome to submit baking & cake decorating projects or creative gift-wrapping ideas. Patterns (e.g. for embroidery or cross stitch) are also very welcome, as are festive printables.

Never written a tutorial before? Check out my (currently still in-progress because I am a very lazy blogger, tsk tsk!) series on how to write a craft tutorial for some tips on getting started, taking notes, taking step by step photos, and taking photos of the finished project, editing your photos and drawing any illustrations.

Step 3: Email me a photo of your finished project by Wednesday 5th November. 

Step 4: Share your crafty tutorial on your blog on Wednesday 12th November.

Step 5: I'll put together a list of everyone's projects and email you asap so you can put the links in a blog post and share the crafty love on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.

If you have any questions, do let me know!

Click here to send me a message if you want to join in the fun. I'll then send you more info about image sizes, etc.

The more bloggers who join in with the link-up the merrier, so please do spread the word among your crafty friends :)

P.S. You can check out all the projects from last year's link-up here.

The Halloween Crafty Tutorial Link-Up

Myself and twelve other crafters shared Halloween tutorials on our blogs this week and now it's time to link to everyone's projects.

Many thanks to Alicia from Felt With Love Designs for organising the link-up!

Bugs and Fishes // Family Living on a Budget // Felt With Love Designs

Good Critters // GYCT Designs // House Full of Boys

Hugs Are Fun // Knot Sew Normal // Mommy in Sports

My Pinterventures // The Nesting Spot // Woods of Bell Trees // Year of Sarah

Just follow the links to check out all the tutorials.

I love the coincidence of there being thirteen tutorials in a Halloween-themed link up! Spooooky...

P.S. I'll be organising a Christmas-themed link-up very soon. Wanna join in? You can read about last year's here and see all of last year's tutorials here. I'll be posting about it here on my blog once I've worked out the details of this year's link-up but if you like the look of last year's link-up and want to join in the fun this year just send me a message.

How To: Geometric Felt Coasters for Halloween

Today I'm sharing a Halloween project as part of Felt With Love Designs' Halloween Crafty Tutorial Link Up. I'll post links to the other tutorials in the link up at the weekend :)

Halloween decorating doesn't just have to be for parties! Add a bit of seasonal colour to your decor this October with these geometric coasters...

The Halloween coasters are decorated with white, orange and yellow felt (the classic candy corn combo!) but this design can of course be adapted to any colours you fancy. The coasters are easy to sew and a set tied with ribbon would make a lovely hostess gift. 

To make the Halloween coasters, you will need:

-  Dark grey or black felt for the coaster bases
-  White, orange and yellow felt for the diamonds

(I used 2.5 mm thick wool blend felt for the coaster bases and thinner craft felt for the diamonds)

- Matching sewing threads
- Contrasting thread for tacking
- Sewing needle and pins
- Sewing scissors
- The templates provided at the bottom of this post

To make each coaster:

1. Use the templates provided to cut out the following pieces: two grey/black bases, four white diamonds, three orange diamonds and four yellow diamonds.

2. Arrange the diamonds on one of the base pieces, as pictured, and pin them in place.

3. Tack the diamonds in place using contrasting thread and long stitches. Try and keep the edges of the diamonds flush with each other and the points lined up neatly. Remove the pins.

4. Sew each diamond in place with small whip stitches and matching thread. Work outwards from the central diamond, sewing the felt pieces flush with each other and making sure you sew a stitch over each point to help keep the shapes neat.

5. Remove the tacking stitches. Your coaster top will look something like this:

6. Place the decorated top and undecorated bottom pieces of the coaster together.

Join the edges together with blanket stitch in matching grey/black thread. Take care not to sew over the points of the diamonds as you pass them. Finish your stitching neatly at the back.

Your finished coaster will look like this:

 

 
Click here to view the template sheet in a new window or tab. Make sure you're viewing it full size, then print at 100%. 

This tutorial is for non commercial use only: you can use it to make as many coasters as you want for yourself or as gifts, but please don't make any for sale. You may borrow a couple of photos if you want to blog about this project, but remember to credit me and link back to this page on my blog, and do not reproduce my entire tutorial / share my templates on your site. Thanks!

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The Crafty Tutorial Link-Up: Flowers!

It's link-up day! Hurrah!

Look at all the awesome flower-themed patterns and tutorials people have designed:

All the bloggers taking part in the link-up shared a flower-themed project on their blog yesterday, and today we're linking to each others projects. There's lots of different crafts to choose from - you can make flowers from paper, yarn, fabric, felt or thread.

Follow the links this this post to see each tutorial and get making some flowers!

Dandelion Puff Embroidery Pattern - Hugs are Fun

Paper Flowers - Life is Like a Triple Chocolate Cookie

 

Super Cute Scandi Style Embroidery - Hoogally

 

Felt Flower Brooch - Little Black Duck

Buzzzzz - Unexpected Kitty

 Flower Power - Pickle-Lily

 

Felt Pansy Bookmark - Grace's Favours

 

Easy Love Heart Cozy - Sara's Texture Crafts

 

Felt Poppies - i ManuFatti

Flowers Embroidery Pattern - Bugs and Fishes (that's me!)

Fabric Flower Necklace - Made by Mrs M

Improvised Foundation Pieced Posy Block - Two Little Aussie Birds

If you've got a moment to comment on your favourite tutorials or link to this post on Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest etc that would be much appreciated. Share the crafty love!

Massive thanks to everyone who took part in the link-up xxx

Want even more craft tutorials? Subscribe to my newsletter for a monthly free pattern and visit my crafty tutorial archive for lots more free projects.

Flowers - Free Embroidery Pattern

Today's the day when all the bloggers taking part in my Crafty Tutorial Link-Up are sharing their flower-themed projects. Everyone has designed such nice things, I can't wait to share them all with you!

Here's my project: a floral embroidery pattern. I'm still quite new to designing embroidery patterns, so I feel a bit nervous sharing this! It started out in my head as a felt applique project and sort of morphed into an embroidery project as I started sketching. I hope you like it :)

 

The pattern is designed to be displayed in a 7 inch embroidery hoop. I stitched it in an 8 inch hoop to give myself some more room to work. I used half strands of embroidery thread / floss (i.e. 3 strands from 6 stranded thread) and stitched the whole design in backstitch, sewing small stitches around the curves.

I stitched my flowers in pink, purple and orange but you can of course use any colours you fancy! I used 5 colours (bright pink, candy pink, magenta, orange and Satsuma) and paired up my colours so that, for example, each orange flower has a magenta centre and each candy pink flower has a Satsuma centre.

 

I chose a plain backing fabric, holding the pattern and fabric up to the light (I secured them both to a window using washi tape!) and tracing the design onto the fabric with a sharp pencil. If you're stitching on dark fabric or on felt, use tissue paper as shown in this project.

 

You can leave the empty space blank or use it to stitch a message of your choice, maybe a favourite saying or something like "Laura's Room" (though, obviously, using your name not mine, haha).

 

Click here to view the colour pattern, and here to view the black and white pattern. Make sure you're viewing them at full size then print at 100%.

N.B. the colour pattern is inked in different colours to the ones I used for stitching because I have more shades of embroidery thread than I do pens! :)

This embroidery pattern is for non commercial use only: you can use it to stitch as many flowers as you want for yourself or as gifts, but please don't make any for sale. You may borrow a few photos if you want to blog about this project, but remember to credit me and link back to the original source, and do not reproduce my entire post or share the pattern itself on your site. Thanks!

Lots of lovely bloggers are taking part in the Crafty Tutorial link-up today... once all their projects have been published I'll put together a post with all the links so you guys can go check them out.  

UPDATE: click here for all the flower link-up projects.  

Enjoyed this free pattern? Buy me a "coffee" and help support my blog!


Subscribe to my newsletter for a monthly free pattern and visit my crafty tutorial archive for lots more free projects.

Coming Soon: Another Crafty Tutorial Link-Up!

Remember last year's awesome Crafty Christmas Tutorial Link-Up?

Well, everyone put together such fab projects that I thought it would be fun to organise a spring/summer link-up too! This time round the theme will be FLOWERS and we'll all be sharing our tutorials in May.

I know May is a while away, but I wanted to give you guys a bit more advance warning this time round to give everyone who wants to take part the chance to work on their designs and get the tutorials finished in plenty of time (things were a bit rushed last year as it was all a bit of a last-minute scheme!).

Flower-themed tutorials from my archive

Want to take part?

Step 1: Send me a message to let me know what your blog address is, and that you'd like to join in the fun. You can contact me HERE. 

Step 2: Design a tutorial! The tutorial should have a floral theme and should be new, not a repost from your archives. Any and all crafty techniques are welcome - we had a great selection last time! Baking / cake decorating projects, embroidery or cross stitch patterns, and printables would also be lovely.

Never written a tutorial before? Check out my (currently still in-progress) series on how to write a craft tutorial for some tips on getting started, taking notes, taking step by step photos, and taking photos of the finished project, editing your photos and drawing any illustrations.

Step 3: Email me a photo of your finished project by Monday 12th May (I'll be sending all of these to everyone taking part so they can use them in their link up posts). 

Step 4: Share your crafty tutorial on your blog on Monday 19th May.

Step 5: I'll put together a list of everyone's projects and email you asap so you can put the links in a blog post (ideally on Tuesday 20th May) and share the crafty love.

If you have any questions, do let me know!